Jorge Herrera-Juárez

I am an Economics Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota. 

My interests are Macroeconomics, Public Economics, Labor, and Growth. In particular, I'm interested in how institutions and policies affect growth and inequality.

About me

I was born in Mexico City and I lived there most of my life until I moved to the U.S. for my Ph.D. I studied for my bachelor's in Economics and my master's in Applied Economics at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). 

In my dissertation thesis for the bachelor’s degree I studied the hysteresis in unemployment and informality in the Mexican labor market. For that, I constructed a new historical data series for the unemployment and informality rates and mathematically defined hysteresis and persistence for those variables. Then, I ran different econometric tests on the time series to test for structural shocks. Finally, I developed two new theoretical models (based on Blanchard & Summers, 1987; and Shimer, 2010)  that included an informal sector to characterize the hysteresis of the informality rate in Mexico. This thesis won second place in the 2021 Citibanamex Economics Award, the most prestigious prize for an economics thesis in Mexico. 

During the last year of my bachelor's, I worked in project management for a year at El Palacio de Hierro, on topics related to implementing technological solutions and performing data analysis for the company. Later on, I worked as an Economist for four years at Banco de México (Mexico's central bank). There I performed economic research and analysis of international financial markets, monetary policy, inflation, central banking communication, the Mexican labor market, and more. I also prepared studies and statistical exercises to advise the Directorate and the Governing Board. I participated in the elaboration of the quarterly reports, the minutes of the monetary policy decisions, and other technical documents. In 2020, while I was working at the Central Bank, I started my Master's in Applied Economics. In 2024, I was awarded a Special Mention for the Pedro Aspe Award, for having the highest score in my Master's in Applied Economics. 

I consider Economics to be the most versatile science for studying society's greatest challenges. When I was finishing high school, I didn't know what to study but I was interested in topics like poverty, inequality, politics, and policymaking. As I researched more about the degrees and the policymakers and researchers that dealt with these issues, I became more and more intrigued about Economics. With my classes in my bachelor's, I discovered the rigor of this science and its adaptability to address many important questions that I had in my mind. At my job at the Mexican Central Bank, I understood the usefulness of economic theory, models, and applications in the real world. I also realized how many interesting new ideas and unsolved questions are still out there and how many new ones emerge every day in the varying economic outlook of the world. This led me to study for my Ph.D. in the University of Minnesota's Economic Department, where mathematical rigor and deep understanding of macroeconomics converged. 

I always liked teaching economics. I started in 2016 as a TA of an Introductory course in Macroeconomics, and since then I have taught more classes as a TA and Instructor at ITAM and the University of Minnesota. I also enjoy running outdoors, painting, writing poetry and songs, and spending time with my family and friends.